106 SNAKES 



of fuel and other chattels, meet with so few accidents. 

 It says a great deal for the mild and inoffensive 

 nature of the snake. Still, the total number of 

 deaths by snake-bite reported every year is very 

 large, and looks absolutely appalling if you do not 

 think of dividing it among three hundred millions. 

 Treated in that way it shrivels up at once, and when 

 compared with the results of other causes of death, 

 looks quite insignificant. 



The natives themselves are so far from regarding 

 the serpent tribe with our feelings that the deadliest 

 of them all has been canonised and is treated with 

 all the respect due to a sub-deity. No Brahmin, 

 or religious-minded man of any respectable caste, 

 will have a cobra killed on any account. If one 

 takes to haunting his premises, he will propitiate it 

 with offerings of silk and look for good luck from 

 its patronage. 



About snakes other than the cobra the average 

 native concerns himself so little that he does not 

 know one from another by sight. They are all 

 classed together as janwar, a word which answers 

 exactly to the " venomous beast " of Acts xxviii. 4 ; 

 and though they are aware that some are deadly 

 and some are not, any particular snake that a sahib 

 has had the honour to kill is one of the deadliest as 

 a matter of course. I have never met a native who 

 knew that a venomous snake could be distinguished 

 by its fangs, except a few doctors and educated men 

 who have imbibed western science. In fact they do 



